


A story untold

by VexedBeverage



Category: Hat Films - Fandom, Hatfilms, The Yogscast
Genre: Depression, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4625733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VexedBeverage/pseuds/VexedBeverage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of crippling depression spanning years. </p><p> </p><p>If you are triggered by talk of depression or death then please do not read, be safe and do not push if you think it may have a negative impact on you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A story untold

The sixth of March was the most terrible day in the history of the world. Okay, that was a lie, but for Ross Hornby, only child to a single mother, it was.

The sixth of March was the day his world fell apart.

It had only been five days since her sixtieth birthday. Five days since he handed her a huge bouquet and a card that had taken him much too long to write. It was a sprawling mass of handwritten text that conveyed his every emotion about the woman who brought him into this world. Words of admiration and thanks, words that he had rarely spoken aloud but wanted to put down for her, so she would know.

That card haunted him for years. Somehow it became something else once she was gone. It wasn’t a loving note anymore, it was a dirty little secret that gnawed away at him, guilt poisoning his mind as it morphed into a letter of release, something that somehow had given her permission to leave him.

Ross was angry, angry at himself, angry at her and angry at anyone who was older than himself and still had their mother. He was just twenty when she left and he wasn’t ready to be an adult and all on his own.

The sixth of March was when Ross called his boyfriend in a numb haze of disbelief and muttered the words out loud. Ross knew that the response given to him should have been expected and the silence that followed his confirmation to the other man that he was indeed 'not joking' unnerved him so much that he hung up the phone.

The sixth of March was the day he told the first of a million lies; 'phone went dead and disconnected', and he got away with it, the lies, years of reassurances that he was 'fine', countless days of fake smiles and energetic talk that convinced them all.

How did he get away with it for so long? The hollow emptiness practically jumped out at him anytime he caught a glimpse of his own reflection, his eyes flat and glassy in a parody of death. Alex didn’t comment when he came home one day to find the bathroom mirror the only one remaining in the house, Ross wasn’t sure if he had even noticed.

He buried himself in fiction, days lost to games and TV, books and films. And he slept. A lot.

Sleep became an addiction, more than any drug could ever be, it was his fix, he craved it. Sleep was where he could just stop being. It was a place of peace and serenity, that welcomed him with open arms and an overwhelming comfort when pretending to be normal became too much.

In the fifth year, he slipped further. He had heard of the term 'holding on by your fingertips', but it wasn’t like that, he didn’t have the strength that would require. Instead, it was like hanging over a yawning abyss by his trouser leg, he had no control or real care if the material held or if it ripped and let him finally plunge him into the void.

The anger was gone, replaced by a contradictory feeling of self destruction and soul sucking apathy about his continued existence.

The first day came and went when he went a full twenty four hours without thinking of her, the weight of it not hitting him until the following day, but when it did, it created a path of destruction that left him and his surroundings in utter devastation.

He could no longer recall her face in detail, he couldn’t remember the lilt in her voice, he couldn’t imagine the way she smelled, and it was enough to send him into a flurry of action. Something he hadn't been able to muster the energy for in months. He pulled the house apart trying to locate every shred of evidence that proved she had existed.

Alex didn’t comment when he returned home that night to find Ross asleep on their bed, still clothed, clutching a picture and surrounded by memories. He merely moved the objects into a box by the bed and crawled behind the other man, offering what little comfort his arms could provide.

Ross wasn’t stupid. He knew he was getting worse and he knew he should ask for help, but he didn’t. He tried to muddle through the days. Thankful when he had the respite of the numb, vacant days to take the sting out of the days, when he couldn’t even fake normalcy anymore and would just sleep.

The thoughts had been there for a while now, he had his small thread of compassion to blame that he hadn't acted on them yet. He would fantasize about oblivion, about the relief that would come from just giving in and ending the pain, but he couldn’t do it.

He may have not been the most present person in his friends' lives the last few years, but he couldn’t do this to them. He couldn’t do it to Alex. How could he? Alex was his everything. How could he be responsible for making him feel even a shred of what he was going through?

The arguments started in the Summer. They started, because he was sliding down further and further. The lies and reassurances sounding false and wrong from a mind too exhausted to continue the charade.

It was questions about loyalty and accusations of feelings not being reciprocated. It was drunken shouting through angry tears that cycled through the months. Always the same questions, asked in a shout or broken voice of despair ('do you even love me anymore?'). Yes. Always cries of yes and apologies cried into skin and hair and clothes. Repeated promises that he would be better, he would show that he loved him, he wouldn’t let it be another three months without touching him, but inevitably... it would be.

The sixth year slammed into him like a sledge hammer. He was done, he couldn’t do it anymore. The pain that had been a dull hum running through every cell in his body had evolved, his whole being burning with an agony that could not be expressed in words.

A decision needed to be made, a decision that would prove to Alex once and for all that he wasn’t going to just be anymore and that he did love him and that he wasn’t going to let this beat him, beat them.

He didn’t like her. Her office was too personal and sparse at the same time. He hated it, he hated her and her forced soothing voice and the stupid fucking box of tissues positioned 'just so' on he desk. He hated the green plastic chair that would creek as he lowered himself into it every week. Most of all, he hated the crying that he just couldn’t stop and the jumble of words that she would coax out of him until he ran out of syllables and would shuffle out in worse spirits than when he entered.

Yet, somehow, the anger and sadness and exhausting numbness ebbed from him, leaving behind a plethora of emotions he hadn't really felt in years.

It was like the world was coming into focus, slowly at first, the edges sharpened and things starting making more sense again. Then, all at once, it snapped, suddenly he found himself laughing and talking and just 'being' again.

At first he would flinch at the comments he would hear, 'back to his old self', he wasn’t sure he remembered this 'old self' that they spoke of and that scared him.

Paranoia niggled at his mind for a couple of weeks before he voiced his thoughts, questioning. Alex confirmed that no, he wasn’t going mental - people did, in fact, sometimes smile to themselves for no reason or find themselves singing to the radio without realizing they were doing it.

The Christmas of the sixth year was when he knew he had made it.

**Author's Note:**

> I have to say the biggest and most heartfelt thank you to Álvaro, without their amazing writing to inspire me and their encouragement this wouldn't have been possible to write. 
> 
> You are awesome man!


End file.
